Entrevista
(A revista Rolling Stone Australiana entrevista DD)
X-Files Uncovered
An Investigation by Andrew Denton
HERE WE GO ... READY GUYS ... and action! Four more seconds
here. Good. You're looking
at Gillian. Great. OK, David, could you not look down so far? OK
And the blood ... David's
tasting someone's blood, actually." I'm on the phone,
listening to David Nutter direct David
Duchovny - aka Fox Mulder - in a scene for a forthcoming episode
of The X-Files. So jealously
does Duchovny guard his free time, that he does all his
interviews on the set. In the middle of ours,
he is unexpectedly called back to do a retake. Not wasting a
second, he talks right up to the
moment he walks in front of the cameras, then hands his director
the phone. This must happen a lot
on The X-Files set because Nutter doesn't miss a beat:
"Hello, is this Andrew Denton?" "Yes, I'm
doing an interview with David for ROLLING STONE." "Oh,
for ROLLING STONE. So you
want to know all the dirt from me?" "Yes Please."
"I've directed 14 of these shows so I've known David since
he was David who?"
"Has he changed a lot? Has his head got huge?"
"No, not at all. He's still the same guy, if you can believe
it."
"You're paid to say that aren't you?"
"Absolutely. Here we go .. read guys .. And ...
action!"
This, as I was to discover, is The X-Files style: very focused,
slighltly sassy, really smart. To have
discovered anything else would have been a surprise.
ORIGINALLY A RATINGS STRAGGLER, The X-Files is now ranked No. 1
in its slot in the
US and has more than 40 million viewers worldwide. Introduced to
Australian audiences only this
year, it has become Network Ten's most conspicuous success,
eclipsing even The Simpsons and
Seinfeld.
What is it about this decidedly non-mainstream concept - two FBI
agents investigating the
paranormal - that has attracted so much attention? The first
thing that hooked me on The X-Files
was how smart the stories were. Not in a self-conscious, preachy
way. Not smart-arse either. Just
intelligent, unexpected, really different.
Let me run a few plot lines past you:
A genetically mutated serial killer who emerges every 30 years
from hibernation with the need to
consume five human livers.
Two unrelated eight-year-old girls - identical in every respect -
who live on opposite sides of
America and who, at the exact same time, murder their fathers by
"exsanguinating" them (ie.
draining them of blood).
A physicist who becomes trapped in a particle accelerator, is
bombarded by a massive amount of
energy, and ends up with a shadow that vaporises people on
contact.
A corporate executive who may have been murdered by a thinking
computer.
Zoo animals impregnated by aliens for reasons unknown.
This is not your ordinary viewing far. But there's more. The two
lead roles - FBI special agents
Fox Mulder and Dana Scully - are not only whip-smart and spunky
as hell, but neither of them
ever makes a pass at the other. That's right, no love interest!
Add to this an understated acting
style that makes Bryan Brown look like Gene Wilder,
cinematography worthy of the wide screen,
and an underlying philosophy that the American government is
behind conspiracies so evil they'd
make even Noam Chomsky blink, and you've got quite a potent
package.
Not that The X-Files isn't without its weaknesses. The paranoia
content is sometimes so high as to
be laughable.
And its very premise - that the "X-Files" are
inexplicable mysteries - means that, too often, the
show asks fascinating questions and provides no ansers. Handy for
the writers. Hell for the
audience.
But these are quibbles. Like The Twilight Zone before it, The
X-Files leaves you in no doubt that
you are watching television's rarest phenomenon - an original
gem, mined with passion and
polished with care.
TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE SCHEDULED interviews with stars David
Duchovny and Gillian
Anderson, and series creator Chris Carter, a black plastic folder
- my very own X-Files - arrived.
Sent to me by Twentieth Century Fox, it contatined an X-Files
comic book, a set of X-Files swap
cars and an "FBI identity card" with its own
"authorised X-Files clearance number".
Clearly I was dealing with a force far greater than I had
previously imagined - magahype:
"Enclosed is vital information and your very own FBI
identity card which will guarantee you
privileged information ... including the TRUTH." (Not bad
for something that looked like a novelty
gift from a Christmas cracker.)
Also included on a list of "Thirteen Of The Grossest Scenes
In The X-Files So Far", featuring such
familiar favorites as "pus shooting boils on the faces of
victims in 'F. Emasculata' and "voodoo
priest pulling himself out of Scully's throat in 'Fresh
Bones'".
Next, came a list of "Thirteen Mysteries Mulder & Scully
Have Yet To Investigate". This was a bit
more prosaic - the curse of the pyramids, killer dolphins, the
Loch
Ness monster - but one caught my eye: "DEROs - Detrimental
Robots which apparently exist
within the Earth to enslave and torment mankind". Even for
The X-Files, this sounds pretty way
out. When I read it to Chris Carter, he just laughed and said,
"I want to know who's going to do
that episode."
The truth may be out there but - in the great tradition of show
business - Fox is never going to let it
stand in the way of a good story.
THE ONE UNDENIABLE TRUTH about the people who make The X-Files is
that all of them
are running very hard. Ten months of the year. Seveteen-hour
days. "They all kind of bleed into
one another," says Duchovny. But at least the work is
stimulating - every episode a different
paranormal feast? "They all kind of blend into one another
too."
Despite their courtesy and cooperation, it feels as if Duchovny
and Anderson would like nothing
more thant to stop talking about The X-Files - a massive success
which they love and are proud
of but which has swallowed up their lives.
Both, however, rise to the challenge of another interview like
true pros - though not without some
difficulties. Anderson, who is speaking to me from her
LA-inspired trailer ("the wood looks like
fake wood even though it's real") spends the first part of
the interview lying down and trying to
keep her Neapolitan Mastiff from jumping on her head.
Over in his trailer, Duchovny is also besieged by his dog, a half
border collie called Blue. Clearly,
sitting around in trailers all day is enough to send anyone stir
crazy.
Chris Carter, on the other hand, is sitting in an office -
without a dog - and seems happy to talk
about The X-Files until the alien-foetus-bearing cows come home.
As editor of Surf Magazine for 13 years - "five of them
pretty hard-core" - Carter has spent a lot
of time in Australia surfing the Gold Coast and surrounds and
"consuming a lot of mend-bending
substances". (How appropriate if the seeds for something as
dark and unconventional as The
X-Files were sown somewhere as pale and predictable as Surfers
Paradise.)
On the day of our interview, he is working on five different
episodes - shooting one, prepping
another, conceiving a third, editing a fourth and checking the
effects for a fifth. "I rarely get home
and go any place but the hallway and then my bedroom - and go
right to bed," he admits.
But this is not a whinge. Carter is riding the biggest wave of
his life and the buzz of that is evident in
everything he says. Even his house is a tribute to his love of
his work, containing props from the
show such as the stomach appendage from "Humbug" and an
original alien corpse from the pilot.
Carter has achieved something every creative soul dreams of: an
original idea that becomes a huge
success without being creatively compromised. So much so, that
one of the world's biggest media
organizations has given him something much better than its
blessing - or even its backing - it's given
him freedom.
Carter is aware of his position - and he's going to take full
advantage of it, too. A movie and other
series spin-offs are planned - and why not? After all - as he's
already proven in spades - the
audience is out there.
